I'm currently reading Jerry Kaplan's excellent book "Startup: a Silicon Valley adventure". In this book, Kaplan, founder and CEO of GO Corp., details the founding, financing and eventual demise of his highly innovative company, including the development and workings of their product. What's so surprising about this book is just how timeless it really is - the names and products may have changed, but the business practices and company attitudes surely haven't.

Emphasis in itself is not bad, when used parsimoniously. And bold is not a bad marker of emphasis either. But when every member of a discussion starts to feel a need to put emphasis on the central parts of his post, which also tend to be the most aggressive ones, it starts to feel like the rich text equivalent of a crowd of people yelling at each other, more than a reasoned discussion.